1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to automatic telephone dialer devices and dialer programming systems, and particularly to dialer devices preprogrammed with specific telephone numbers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Preprogrammed autodialers are useful in applications for prepaid calling or credit cards for telephone services, advertising and premium incentives, and other uses. Typically dialer devices of this type are characterized by a lack of programmability by the end-user of account information in that they are programmed in advance by a releasable electrical connection or the dialing signal is preprogrammed on a hard-wired or mask level on the chip. Such devices are useful in that a common theft known as "shoulder surfing" is reduced or eliminated. In shoulder surfing, unscrupulous parties may write down a calling parties calling card number that is annunciated to an operator or dialed on a DTMF keypad. The stolen account number may later be used for telephone calls not authorized by the party who is ultimately billed for such calls. A number of devices have been developed to meet the need for more secure dialing of account codes for telephone calls in a portable preprogrammed dialer device. Such devices are convenient in that they relieve the calling party from manual entry or annunciation of a large number of digits in order to place a call.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,126,768 issued to Grenzow and incorporated herein by reference is shown a portable digit outpulser enclosed in a credit card size case which may be used to acoustically generate DTMF signals corresponding to one or more frequently dialed numbers. In this disclosure a ROM memory contains the dial out data.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,135 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,941,172 issued to Winebaum and U.S. Pat. No. 5,181,744 issued to Betheil and all incorporated herein by reference disclose a dialer device in which telephone numbers are preprogrammed by masking the chip in advance with a stored set of numbers. These inventions are useful in that the dialer device does not require custom programming and therefore every label attached to many dialer devices can be preprinted with the same telephone number as hardwired on the chip by the manufacturer. However in the case of a major telecommunications carrier such as AT&T or MCI, several million different account authorization codes may be useful along with a hardwired access code to automate the entry of account authorizations for the end-user. The masking/fabrication process is expensive and does not allow for variable data such as millions of different account or authorization codes to be programmed in dialer devices.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,882,750 issued to Henderson et al and U.S. Pat. No. 5,210,790 issued to Lin and incorporated herein by reference are shown programmable dialer systems in which a releasable electrical connection is made with a dialer device to download dialing instructions from a programming source such as a personal computer or the like. The limitation of such an approach is that there is not provided an efficient manner for ensuring that the information programmed in the dialer device is the same as the variable information printed on the label which is affixed to the device.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,995,077 issued to Malinowski incorporated herein by reference is described one dialer device with two different programmable numbers programmed in a releasable electrical manner. Typically, programmable dialer devices of this type are imprinted with non-variable advertising information such as logos and 800 number information corresponding to preprogrammed telephone numbers and do not usually contain variable printed information that corresponds to the information programmed.
This prior art does not teach how to print variable data on many different dialer devices which corresponds to variable programmed data such as account or authorization number information and non-variable data such as logos and other information in an accurate and efficient manner. It is important to have account numbers printed on the dialer in a manner similar to conventional credit or prepaid calling cards because acoustically coupled dialers do not work with 100% accuracy due to faulty or blocked telephone sets, loud ambient noise, network problems and the like. Therefore the end-user should be able to refer to a printed account number on the dialer for manual dialing when a good acoustic coupling cannot be made.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,343,519 incorporated herein by reference is shown a dialer device in which a display is integrated into the dialer which may be used to view programmed information. However this conventional display adds significant cost to the dialer device and can fail if the power source for the dialer runs low. In this patent is shown a programming fixture adapted to program a multiplicity of dialer units using a SCSI interface with a personal computer. No solution is offered regarding the imprinting of variable information that corresponds to data programmed in the dialer units.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,535,204 discloses optical reading of telephone numbers stored in a barcode format on various types of storage media, followed by automatic dialing of a telephone number after a user passes a reading wand over the proper barcode.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,266,102 issued Stanley et al. discloses an automatic dialer utilizing a device capable of reading a phone number of a business card and storing it in a memory, which later can be used for dialing. The device converts this information into a set of dial signals understandable by the telephone line.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,672,661 issued to Clark et al. discloses a card-like device having a strip of magnetic material with magnetically encoded number information. Upon insertion of the device into a modified telephone apparatus equipped with a magnetic reader the telephone apparatus can retrieve encoded numbers on the magnetic strip number.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,124,659 issued to Andregg et al. discloses an electromechanical device using a card having series of holes for encoding the telephone number thereon. In this type of device, the card serves merely as data storage and is not by itself capable of generating signals understood by the telephone line.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,870,830 issued to Liu discloses an optical reader which uses a card with series of holes encoding the telephone number(s). Other patents are concerned with how active electronic elements can be fused or otherwise connected into a credit card size structure. See for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,026,452 and 4,966,857. Also relevant in the field are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,822,990, 5,066,047, 4,117,542 and 5,166,501. Also see French patent reference 26 40 549 published Jun. 22, 1990.
Generally the above described inventions fail to address the need for integrated variable programming and printing in an improved autodialing device and programming/printing method.
In small production lots this is not a difficult problem to monitor and control. In the prior art systems small production lots may be separately programmed and labels may then be separately generated with variable and non-variable data which are applied to the corresponding preprogrammed dialer units. Typically one supplier or operation prints the label or dialer and another supplier or operation programs the dialer unit. These processes are not integrated as with conventional credit card encoding and imprinting operations because of the unique configuration and assembly requirements of autodialer devices. Credit card operations are not easily adapted to receive and process dialer devices for programming and imprinting.
When addressing higher production volumes from several hundred thousand to several million dialer units, the conventional prior art programming and printing solutions prove inadequate and unworkable. To ensure that the proper label or imprint is attached to the appropriate corresponding programmed dialer is a labor intensive process that is prone to error. In addition it is desirable to centralize the programming and printing operations in one location rather than separate suppliers or facilities for printing and programming operations. This is important because the account number information can be regarded as money in that telephone charges can be incurred by anyone using them. For security reasons, it is important to control the account number data so that fraudulent charges cannot occur from someone improperly using the account numbers.
It is also noted that none of the above prior art dialer devices or methods is capable of receiving programming instructions that include data other than DTMF generation information. Typically the above devices are preprogrammed on a mask level or with a serial or row and column interface with DTMF programming instructions only. Because of the promotional nature of these dialer devices, it may be desirable to preprogram other information that could be displayed or annunciated from within the dialer device.
The invention described herein addresses the need for a reliable and efficient method and apparatus which combines printing and programming of variable and nonvariable data in dialer devices. The invention overcomes the inherent inefficiencies and shortcomings of the prior art methods. It further provides for alternative data to be programmed in a dialer device besides instructions related to DTMF signal generation in a novel manner.